East Notes: Red Sox, Orioles, Mets

If the Red Sox don't re-sign Stephen Drew, they'll likely go into the 2014 season with Jackie Bradley Jr. in center field and Xander Bogaerts at shortstop, and that will be a gamble, given their inexperience, WEEI.com's Alex Speier writes. To find a World Series-winning team that had rookies as their primary starters at center field and shortstop, one has to go all the way back to the 1959 Dodgers, with Don Demeter and Maury Wills. That doesn't prove much, of course. A few decades' worth of World Series-winning teams isn't a huge sample size, and as Speier points out, the Red Sox have recently blended in young up-the-middle players in Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury and Jed Lowrie while still having very successful teams. But there may be value in having stability at tough defensive positions. Here are more notes from the East divisions.